Far-right Romania politician loses appeal against presidential vote ban

BUCHAREST, MAR 12 (AFP/APP/DNA):Romanian far-right politician Calin Georgescu on Tuesday lost an appeal against a decision barring him from standing in the country’s presidential election re-run, spelling the end of his meteoric rise, as hundreds of his supporters protested outside the court.

The fierce EU and NATO critic shot to prominence last November, when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting before the constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion of Georgescu.

Romania’s electoral bureau on Sunday rejected Georgescu’s candidacy for the May re-run based on the top court’s annulment of last year’s ballot, sparking violent clashes in the EU and NATO member bordering war-torn Ukraine.

Georgescu had filed an appeal challenging that decision as “blatantly unlawful”.

But the constitutional court on Tuesday unanimously rejected the appeal, it said in a statement, without immediately giving details about its reasoning.

The ruling cannot be appealed further in Romania.

Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu welcomed the decision, posting on Facebook that it “closes an extremely tense and dangerous episode that Romania has experienced in recent months”.

“I consider my mission accomplished,” Georgescu said in a video published on Facebook after his appeal was rejected, calling on Romanians “to show democratically and peacefully that our choice matters until the last moment”.

“While America is becoming great again, Europe and Romania have become petty, corrupt, and under dictatorship,” Georgescu, who recently has presented himself as “ultra pro” US President Donald Trump, posted on X.

Senior members of the US administration, including Trump adviser Elon Musk, had thrown their weight behind Georgescu, who polls predicted could have won around 40 percent of votes in the May re-run.

Outside the constitutional court, several hundred Georgescu supporters shouted “thieves” after news of its decision spread.

“This is no longer a democracy. What are we living in? A dictatorship,” Marius Vasile, a 51-year-old pensioner, told AFP earlier.

“We want to elect whom we want… It’s him (Georgescu) we want. We don’t want anyone else,” said Marinela Simona Cheosa, a 45-year-old engineer waving a Romanian flag.

Analysts widely predict George Simion, leader of far-right party AUR and a vocal Georgescu supporter since the annulled vote, will run for president from the far-right camp.

Simion, in an interview late Tuesday, said he did not intend to run for president but would meet Georgescu and others to discuss it.

The deadline for submitting candidacies is the weekend.

Simion on X accused the court of “mocking the Romanian people” and “attacking our democracy and our essential rights and freedoms”.

Romanian institutions, including the court, have failed “to set the criteria for such an exceptional measure (to ban Georgescu) and to properly justify it publicly,” Marius Ghincea, a political scientist at ETH Zurich, told AFP.

Georgescu “is popular because he embodies the general resentment against the establishment and all the governance failures it represents,” Ghincea added.

Georgescu, a 62-year-old former senior government official, unexpectedly won the first round of a presidential election as an independent candidate.

In a shock move — rare in the EU — Romania’s constitutional court annulled the ballot shortly before the second round in December.

On Sunday, after the electoral bureau banned Georgescu, hundreds rallied against the decision, with clashes between protesters and law enforcement officers leaving 13 injured.

Three men aged 43, 48 and 50 have been indicted for allegedly committing “acts of violence” during the protests, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Georgescu, who previously expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, denies any links to Moscow.